Matias’s Sunday evening exorcism
Date: 2025-07-27 18:40
(Matias’s Sunday evening exorcism)
[Sun Jul 27 2025]
Oak Meadow Playground/span>/spanafternoon, about 76F(24C) degrees, and the sky is covered by dark grey stormclouds. The mist is heaviest At High and Oakwood/span>/spanThe heavy afternoon air clings to skin as Lykaia, Avalon, and Matias arrive at Oak Meadow Playground. Dark storm clouds roll overhead, casting shifting shadows across the manicured grounds despite the warm temperature. The playground sits eerily quiet – no children’s laughter, no parents chatting on benches. Only the distant hum of hidden sprinkler systems and the rustle of ancient oak leaves in the humid breeze.
At exactly 6:40 PM, a small figure materializes near the central climbing structure. A young girl, perhaps eight years old, wearing a bright yellow raincoat that seems oddly out of place in the summer heat. She moves with purpose toward the base of the largest oak tree, humming a melody that carries an unsettling quality – beautiful yet mournful. In her small hands, she clutches a collection of colorful stones.
Emma begins arranging the stones in deliberate patterns around the oak’s massive roots, her humming never faltering. The sound seems to resonate strangely with the trees themselves, as if the ancient wood remembers the tune. She works methodically, placing each stone with careful precision, occasionally glancing up at the storm clouds gathering intensity above.
The girl appears completely absorbed in her task, unaware of the three observers. Her yellow raincoat stands out like a beacon against the darkening landscape.
“Of course not. I’ve jumped off that thing far more than I’d like to admit.” Lykaia answers Matias. She glances around. “What are we dealing with? Reality cracks? Curses? Demons?”
Matias looks from Lykaia and Avalon to the only child in the area. Flicking his rosary so it wraps around his palm instead of hanging and clacking from his wrist. The man begins to make an approach lacking his normal teacherly disposition he instead begins to hum the same tune as the raincoat wearing child only he hums it in a Minor Key, foreboding and errie.
Matias says, while humming in a minor key, “Likely reality bleed.“
“Not far off” Avalon tells Matias as he watches the kid appear and observes her, shrugging his shoulders and putting the rifle back into his bag, he tells Lykaia “Tends to cling to that western part of Elysia… The mist I mean, next time probably try and drive east and then upwards… Or get a horse” He informs with a shrug of his shoulders. Then there’s a pause and he asks Matias “Is this one of those situations in which we have to be delicate? Or can we just…” He places his hands together, one on top of the other, before making twisting motions in opposition directions with each, and nodding towards the kid “And be done with it?”
coordinates, perhaps, or a date. The pattern resembles something scientific, methodical.
Emma glances at Avalon’s gesture, tilting her head with childlike curiosity. “You can’t break what’s already broken,” she says matter-of-factly, then returns to her work. She pulls more stones from her raincoat pockets – an impossible number for such small pockets to hold.
The storm clouds above rumble ominously, and the first drops of rain begin to fall, though they seem to avoid Emma entirely. The droplets hiss slightly when they hit the warm ground around the three investigators.
Time stamp: 6:43 PM. Emma continues her methodical work, occasionally humming fragments of the haunting melody.
Matias seems as if he is about to answer and then the spirit acknowledges them and motions towards the child. “Unfortunately those outside normal reality are rarely stopped by reality… We have to find the tear where the bleed is happening and repair it or shut it by destroying the attuned item or items.” he says as if that explains everything…
Matias pulls out a saint minted coin and flicks it causing a tuning fork like humming noise to resound in the air, anything magical within fifty meters will begin emitting an offset hum as the locator rite tries to show leads as to what might be related to this spirit child.
“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong kid, there’s plenty of room to keep breaking things” Avalon replies to the young woman as if casually talking to someone else, anywhere else, just banter rather than some apparition “Specially in places like these…” He remarks before tilting his head once more towards Matias and asking to confirm “So… Find some cursed object and either fix it or destroy it, yes?”
Lykaia exhales a breathe out through her nose and starts to make her way over towards the girl to examine the pattern.
“42.3601, -71.0589” followed by what appears to be “GM.C – 04.15.24 – TREES REMEMBER.“
Emma’s humming grows more urgent as she places the final stones. The coordinates point somewhere within the park itself, and the date is from three months ago. She glances toward a cluster of oak trees about fifty meters northeast, where Matias’s coin detects the strongest magical resonance.
“Grandmother found the door,” Emma whispers, her voice carrying despite the growing rain. “Under the roots where the old growth remembers. But he made the car go sideways before she could tell.“
Time stamp: 6:46 PM. The storm intensifies, but the rain still refuses to touch the girl in yellow.
Matias ignores the spirit and approaches the oak trees that are to the northeast until the humming becomes obvious and he dismisses the right. Now standing amongst the trees he holds up both hands and takes a deep breath. Slapping his palms together he opens them palm up and then separates them moving his hands out to the side like opening and parting a book. The natural magics flow from him into the ground the very roots of these ancient oaks tearing the ground open to reveal what may be buried within the dirt and roots themselves.
Matias says, soaking wet and not dressed for rain, his flipflops squelching in the mud, “Someone hop down in there and look for a lockbox or a door into the maintenance tunnels?“
“Coordinates.” Lykaia concludes, but makes a slight shake of her head. “Unsure how I determine that, lemme draw up my mil-map and see where it’s at. Will make my way over for it. See what’s there.” Which follows with following after Matias, since that’s where it is leading. “She mentioned trees. Probably shortly after New Haven appeared. Or before. Hard to tell. Time doesn’t always make sense here.”
Avalon continues being as unhelpful as he has been the whole time, posing the others “How do these things happen? I mean, that date is old, but the City has only been here for a month… Do they build these people up like the rest of the place or… Are they like lost in magic or something and end up here as castaways?” And after that he approaches Matias ever so slowly, taking this with clearly too much calm, maybe more than he should, standing to a side of the man and asking “What are we looking for exactly? Any clues?”
6:47 PM. The girl’s form begins to flicker slightly, like a digital image losing signal.
The biometric scanner on the hatch pulses expectantly, waiting for authorization that none of the investigators possess.
Matias looks down at a fucking biometric scanner on a hatch and looks at Avalon and simply says, “I personally think some Fae went through and seeded a bunch of past history bullshit.” as he motions down to what could only be a practical joke in any other place.
Matias says “This is an episode of Lost, surely.“
Lykaia rolls her eyes and picks up her phone. Calling a number to someone she affiliates with. “Halberd. Coords, 42.3601, -71.0589. Scanner. Requires biometrics. Government issued or random box? Give me authorization if you have it.”
“Well… We either have to fix or destroy, and since we can’t access anything unless we break this…” Avalon starts to say as the scanner is spotted, taking a single step backwards and reaching for his hammer, wielding it almost as if it was an axe and, orienting it behind his back, swinging it in a whole arch over himself before making it descend over the biometric scanner, seemingly doing all of it too late to pay attention to Lykaia’s request
“UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED. INITIATING LOCKDOWN PROTOCOL.“
Lykaia’s phone crackles with static before a voice responds: “Negative on government classification. That’s private sector, likely biotech. No authorization available.“
At exactly 6:47 PM, Emma stops mid-hum and looks directly at the storm clouds. “The trees remember everything,” she whispers, her voice now carrying an electronic distortion. Her form flickers more rapidly.
Heavy blast doors begin sliding shut over the hatch opening. The investigators have perhaps thirty seconds before the entrance seals completely. Emergency klaxons wail from the underground facility, and the oak trees around them seem to shudder in response to some unseen disturbance below.
Time stamp: 6:47 PM. Emma’s digital ghost grows more unstable with each passing second.
Lykaia makes her way out of the facility and sighs, hanging up on her phone. “Blast doors. Biotech.” She counts the later up specifically, and makes her way to one of the trees to try and find something, or scrape off some of the bark to collect it as an attempt for the scanner if the door opens again hopefully soonish.
In the thirty seconds before the blast doors close Matias begins examining the trees with some hurried energy. “Letting these persist over time just makes them impossible to solve. It starts pulling other similar but unrelated effects into it if we do not stop it.”
Avalon groans as the biometrics not only doesn’t open but also apparently starts closing some hatch, taking a couple steps backwards and glancing towards Matias and Lykaia, letting them handle it, before asking “What even are we trying to accomplish? The girl isn’t doing anything, and is nearly vanished… And this thing seems to be trying to seal itself…”
52 PM, Emma’s flickering form dissolves entirely in a swirl of autumn leaves that materialize from nowhere, spinning upward into the storm clouds before vanishing. The leaves shouldn’t exist in July, yet they scatter across the playground with an otherworldly rustling sound.
The air shimmers. Reality bends.
Suddenly, the investigators find themselves back where they started. The storm clouds reset to their earlier position. The playground returns to its eerily quiet state.
At exactly 6:40 PM – again – the small figure in the bright yellow raincoat materializes near the central climbing structure. Emma begins her methodical approach to the oak tree, humming the same haunting melody, clutching the same collection of colorful stones.
The loop has reset. Time has rewound twelve minutes.
But this time, the investigators retain their memories of what just transpired. They know about the coordinates, the hidden facility, the biometric scanner, and Emma’s cryptic words about her grandmother’s discovery.
Time stamp: 6:40 PM. The cycle begins anew.
Matias sighs quietly as Avalon speaks and then they are reset.”Because -we- are now stuck in a fucking time loop.”
Lykaia rolls her eyes and then makes her way over to the oak-tree, trying to look for something that would key for the biometric, and if she finds nothing, makes the attempt to scrape off some bark and to get a hold of something from the girl of not the girl herself, lifting her up and dragging her over to the biometric scanner if there is no other option.
Matias moves back to the northeast and once again claps his hands together, opens them palm up, and then separates them to reveal the hatch via moving the Ancient Oak roots with natural magics.
“Well, that’s what we get for fucking with magic” Avalon sighs out with a couple shakes of his head, reaching to rub the bridge of his nose with two fingers before grumpily commenting “Back in my day I could have shrugged most of this off… But venture into some ghost time loop when cursed… Great” At this point not even talking with Matias or Lykaia, simply complaining to himself aloud, pacing once more towards where the whole biometric scanner was buried and commenting “Alright, not smashing it now…”
6:43 PM. The facility entrance stands open, waiting.
Lykaia drags the girl roughly inside and tries to use her for the biometric scanner and if that doesn’t help, the tree’s bark.
Matias makes another gesture and the roots of the oak trees grow down and secure the hatch open as well as offering something to climb in and out of the hatch.
“Down goes the big guy” Avalon says as he jumps within the hatch into the facility entrance, glancing around the place to try and see what’s in there, aided by his night vision
6:44 PM. They have eight minutes before the loop resets.
Lykaia exhales slowly, and keeps holding the girl up in front of the biometric scanner until it definitely confirms with a positive and the biometric scanner opens what it needs to open.
Avalon searches for any ancient cursed items or links, just like Matias mentioned earlier
Avalon seems to find some little amulet down inside the hatch, and remembering what Matias mentioned of fixing or breaking in order to have the whole issue resolved, the man decides to go with his gut and smash the amulet, breaking it into pieces, hoping to sever the time loop in the process and put an end to the issue
Matias lingers near the entrance ensuring people can get in and out, otherwise letting Avalon solve it.
6:45 PM – but the seconds continue ticking forward naturally now. The loop is broken.
Emma looks up at the three investigators with grateful eyes. “Will you help me find the truth about what happened to Grandmother?“
Matias looks at the small child, “She died and you are dead too…” and with that he begins speaking the final rites of the catholic church to send this trapped spirit on to the afterlife and out of his hair.
Matias says, holding the rosary up in the girls direction, “Amen!“
“She’s inside that box. Hold still so we can get her out of it you child.” Lykaia says, sighing as she evidently turns to look at her and Matias and Avalon instead. She keeps lifting her, holding her up as the bioscanner is evidently still working on it.
Avalon eventually emerges from the hatch, just as grumpy as he was before going down, answering to the girl “She’s de-” Before Matias gets ahead of himself, his eyebrow perking at Lykaia and sighing, shrugging his shoulders and saying “Just let’s get done with this and out… I am tired of this magic bullshittery, it was the same with the pirate demon ghosts…”
E.CHEN.” File cabinets line the walls, marked with dates from three months ago.
Time stamp: 6:46 PM. They have minutes to decide Emma’s fate and gather evidence before any remaining security protocols activate.“
The girls fate is decided as Matias performs the last rites to free this spirit from its bindings and woes, sending it and banishing it to the eternal beyond. Whether it be a happy outcome or sad!
“See, Biolock worked.” Lykaia points out, letting the girl down and then moving towards the file cabinets to start shuffling through them quickly. Looking for any clue to Emma’s grandmothers with the precious minutes that remains. She is categorical and tries to work quick, dismissing when a cabinet seems to hold files that are unrelated. She does not seem to care about what Matias is doing with the girl and just tries to get through the work quick.
Avalon lets the two of them do their work, lingering nearby, and glancing towards where his horse is resting, taking a couple steps in that direction before mentioning “I’m going to wait for you two to give me the okay… Don’t want any more weird looping…”
Dr. Veil’s illegal experiments, the cover-up, the murders. Justice can finally be served.
Time stamp: 6:48 PM. The nightmare is over.